On Thursday, the Phillies designated reliever JC Romero for assignment. Advanced metrics despise Romero: he’s a guy who has walked at least five batters per nine innings over his last seven seasons, while striking out less than eight batters per nine in each of those seven seasons as well. But despite his horrible peripherals, Romero was a damn lucky pitcher. During his entire Phillies career (since mid-2007), he never had an ERA above 4.00. Why did the Phillies wait until now to dump Romero? I’m really not sure. He had more walks than strikeouts on the season, but he also did in each of the last two years. Honestly, I don’t know what pushed them over the edge. What must have pushed the button was the fact that Vance Worley was in AAA Lehigh Valley, and pitching quite well, so the team figured they finally had a guy who could replace Romero in the bullpen.
But that leads me to another question. Why are relievers so volatile? The answer can be explained in two words: sample size. If a pitcher gets shelled and allowed five runs in two innings, they can sweep it under the rug with six scoreless innings in their next outing. If a reliever allows five runs in two innings, to get those six scoreless innings to sweep it under the table, they’d need to be good for a week or two, without allowing anymore runs. That’s a difficult proposition, and a reason why it’s so silly to give relievers multi-year, big money contracts.
Go back just 2008, three short seasons ago. Look at the top ten players in reliever ERA. They were…
-Brad Ziegler
-Joe Nathan
-Mariano Rivera
-Grant Balfour
-Joakim Soria
-Jose Arredondo
-Hong-Chih Kuo
-Scott Downs
-Brad Lidge
-Joe Nelson
Of the players on this list, only Ziegler, Rivera, Balfour, and Downs have ERAs under 3.00 this season. Nelson and Arredondo aren’t even in the majors anymore. Lidge, Nathan, and Kuo have dealt with injury after injury. And Soria has fallen off a cliff this year after a great run as Royals closer. The hot reliever on the block one day can be trash the next day after just a couple of bad outings. You look at Braves fans anointing Jonny Venters as the savior, and a dominant reliever for years to come…and then you look at the performance of guys who were at that level in the past, and how quickly they fell off. All it tells me is that a guy from AAA can easily come up to replace your struggling veteran at the end of the day. It’s just not worth it to pay huge dollars for relievers after a couple of good seasons.
Post Author: Joe Lucia.
